Welcome to Helsinki, the perfect place for co-creation and piloting!

You might know us from the thousand lakes, midnight sun, the happiest people in the world and Käärijä – but we are also one of the leading cities of open data, agile piloting, MaaS and the urban digital twin!

Why Helsinki?

Forum Virium Helsinki is an in-house innovation company of the City of Helsinki. We have easy access to authorities and 400 companies, universities and cities in our wide network.
Thanks to Helsinki’s supportive regulation, we are pioneering in Agile piloting for tests and demonstrations – we’re as agile as a startup, yet as powerful as a City.
We are one of Finland’s most efficient users of European Union innovation funding with a total of €70M and 200 pilots.
We have an impressive expertise on cutting edge innovation with MaaS, AV’s, drones and more!
We love open data! In fact, Helsinki is one of the most open cities in the world in terms of data. The objective is that the data Helsinki produces will be the most usable in the world by 2025!
Mobility Lab Helsinki ensures the best Testbed experience for you.
You’ll have access to Helsinki’s Digital Twin for Mobility – a comprehensive platform upon to build your innovation.
And of course, let’s not forget that our country is the happiest in the world in 2023 – for a record sixth time! Happy times and welcome to Helsinki!

We’re looking forward to co-creating with you! Don’t hesitate to contact us for more information on our current projects.

Digital Twin – The greatest platform for smart mobility

The digital twin of the city combines different data sources and supports data-driven decision making. New data sources are emerging: as a result of the ongoing digitalization, urban mobility is increasingly producing data describing both the traffic and the urban environment. Installed with new sensor systems, the vehicles can become mapping platforms. Combined, these emerging data sources may form a digital twin of urban mobility.

The urban digital twin is, however, more than just a 3D model of the city!

Roots in product development – In engineering and product development a digital twin typically refers to a digital model describing a complex system. By detailed modeling, the behaviour of the system can be simulated prior to manufacturing any physical compoments.

If sensor systems are fitted to monitor existing systems, their data can be combined with a digital twin and applied in optimization and simulation of different operating scenarios. This concept can also be applied to urban environments.

The social dimension – A city is more than just the physical infrastructure. Majority of urban processes, such as urban planning, are inherently social processes involving multiple stakeholders. Therefore, replicating the physical environment in a digital form is not enough for creating an urban digital twin – the social dimension also has to be taken into account. For example, citizen feedback is a significant component of an urban digital twin.

A system of systems – Data integration is at the core of an urban digital twin. The urban digital twin becomes a system of systems that combines data from multiple different data sources, provided over standardized interfaces. Data sources can be combined in tools and dashboards supporting different urban processes. Thus, the processes can rely on up-to-date data.

Building on 3D city modeling – 3D city models are a central data asset in building urban digital twins. In Helsinki, 3D city modeling has a long history, with the first experimental 3D models being built in 1980’s. Discover the 3D city models and their history in Helsinki.

Projects related to the digital twin

Forum Virium Helsinki is a city innovation company with extensive experience of different EU funding instruments. Digital twins are being developed and utilized in the following projects:

Photo: Flow Festival / Jussi Hellsten

Additional information